


Empire of the Avatar

by Batmenace15



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Politics, Gen, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:22:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27069325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batmenace15/pseuds/Batmenace15
Summary: Fire. Air. Water. Earth.When I was a boy, my mother, the Great Uniter Kuvira, told me of how Avatar Korra selflessly gave her life to save her in the climactic Battle of Republic City. With Avatar Korra dead and Kuvira’s Colossus destroyed, the Union of Imperial Earth States and the United Republic of Nations had reached an impasse and signed an armistice ending hostilities between the two governments. In the wake of this armistice, all out war has been prevented due to the production of the most powerful weapon humans have ever created, the spirit bomb, for using such weapons would wipe out all life on the planet. Eighteen years have passed since this tense cold war has begun and the Avatar has still not been found, some have lost hope and believe that the cycle died with Korra. But I am not so short sighted. I believe that somehow, the Avatar will return and bring order to the world.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 12





	1. Book 1 Chapter 1: The Student from Zaofu

Baatar III sat in his private car in a high speed magnetic train, looking over various notes for his upcoming lecture. Taking an airplane may have gotten him there faster, but he never felt at ease so far away from the ground, maybe it was his earthbender nature, or he simply missed the sights and sounds of his great nation as he passed them by. His attention today however was not on the scenery nor the notes for his lecture, but rather the two page chart going over census data from eighteen years ago. Lately, no matter what he was supposed to be focused on, he always found his attention drifting back to that census data. Back in his home of Ba Zhu Se, he had entire filing cabinets full of census data and the names of everyone who was born within nine months before and after the Battle of Republic City. The day the Earth Empire lost its chance to reclaim the land that was stolen from them. The day Avatar Korra died.

Earth, fire, air, water. Not once had the Avatar Cycle deviated from this eternal rotation. Not even the extinction of an entire nation could prevent the cycle from being born anew. Yet, despite the comforting certainty of the Avatar cycle, like the certainty of the next season, people were beginning to lose hope. Avatar Korra had been dead for nearly twenty years and not a single sighting of anyone bending more than one element. 

Methods both traditional and scientific had been used attempting to find the unknown Avatar, if they even existed, but nothing seemed to work. Academics had toiled over the question of how the Avatar’s spirit leaves their previous body, whether the spirit enters a baby exactly as they're born, at the moment of conception, or even while they’re in the womb, none had been able to prove any theory correct and in the end it all amounted to fruitless conjecture. Those same academics later told him that he shouldn’t waste his time on an endless wild Cuckoo-goose chase, but Baatar never gave up hope.

“Sir, we’re making our approach to Zaofu,” a voice rang up to Baatar, he turned his head upwards to see that a masked guard, one of the few that were ordered to accompany him by his mother, was speaking to him.

“Alright, make sure governor Xueliang knows when we’ll make our exact arrival,” Baatar answered as he put away his notes. 

The guard simply bowed and walked off, there were two other guards sitting not far from him, and Baatar knew for a fact that he saw two other guards in disguise sitting in the next passenger car as he walked on on the train. He first noticed the undercover guards when he was only 13 years old and he took his second trip alone to Kyoshi State. There were times where he noticed just on the corner of his bespeckled eyes, that two or three commoners always seemed to be following him, and if he turned around they would immediately turn around and avoid eye contact. Baatar never bothered confronting his mother about this, he knew she’d just deny it and he knows better than to spur any suspicion from her, just because he was her son didn’t mean that he was exempt from incurring her wrath.

_There are times where I wonder if all these guards are mother’s idea of protecting me or spying on me_ , Baatar thought, looking out the window.

Baatar always loved the scenery in the valley to Zaofu, the rolling emerald green hills and lush forests that surrounded it’s untainted beauty while the city lived in perfect harmony with the environment, like a massive metal flower field that sprouted and grew with the valley. It was in perfect order with nature and the government, and served as the model for all other growth and development in the entire Earth Empire.

The legendary metal city was now in view, just around the mountains lay the city in it’s magnificent metal splendor. The architecture and sprawl had not changed much in the last two decades since Kuvira rejoined the city state with her Union, but the sprawling platinum domes that once protected the city no longer stretched above. The buildings they shielded sat like the stigmas of a flower that had lost its petals. There had been pleas to Kuvira to restore the petals which once provided such a unique visual flair to the prosperous city, and of course the locals hoped that the thick platinum domes could repel the blast of a spirit bomb explosion, should it ever come to that. Kuvira rejected every such request, claiming that they were obsolete, having been constructed to thwart off invaders and bandits, threats that Suyin Beifong and Baatar Sr would have had to worry about as they hoarded all of their wealth and technology to themselves. But ever since Zaofu had been integrated into the Earth Empire they can rely on the protection of the Imperial Army instead of their vaunted domes. Of course, most Zaofu citizens knew the real reason, that without the domes above them, there was nothing they could hide from the view of the Great Uniter. 

The train came to a halt, and before he knew it Baatar was stepping off his car and into the magnificent metal city that he considered a second home growing up. Meeting him at the station and elevator to the city proper was Governor Xueliang, a tall thin man in an Earth Empire uniform with a few medals adorning his front jacket. He gave a respectful bow and smiled at Baatar as he stepped off the train platform with the three guards who _were_ guards as the two guards who were _not_ guards discreetly entered the crowd.

“Welcome back to Zaofu, Baatar,” Xueliang warmly greeted him, “it is always an honor to have the son of our Great Uniter return to the metal city.”  
  
“It’s good to be back, sir governor,” Baatar answered, playing along with Xueliang’s brownnosing, something that all governors of Zaofu have done to earn the favor of Kuvira’s expected successor. “Is Zaofu University ready for my arrival?”  
  
“Oh of course, sir,” said Xueliang, “the faculty and students are most eager for your lecture, they’ve even suggested you become a professor here.”

Baatar scoffed, “me? A professor? While I’m always glad to make these kinds of appearances, I’m still only 18. I have a life ahead of me that I’d like to not spend grading papers.” 

Baatar thought of his own upbringing, being rigorously taught the most advanced education when he was still a child, graduating early from Zaofu University when he was only 16. Despite him being a well known prodigy, even if he was the worst student in history Kuvira probably would’ve forced any university to have him graduate with honors. He now enjoyed giving lectures based on his universally acclaimed thesis across the Empire, anything to keep him out of Ba Zhu Se and away from his mother.

“Well, let’s get this show on the road,” Baatar said as he walked alongside Xueliang to the elevator.

* * *

Zaofu University was one of the most prestigious academies in the whole world, and it was founded by Suyin Beifong herself with the intent to devise a revolutionary new type of school with new learning methods. The very layout of the university grounds was one of the most intricate of Baatar Senior’s architectural projects. Within ten years of opening, it rivaled Ba Sing Se University and the University of Zukokyo in terms of prestige. However, during Kuvira’s rule of the Earth Empire she made various subtle changes to the curriculum, a change to history lessons here and a lost political science professor there, but nothing to revamp the entire system and change its legendary status on the world education stage. At its core, it still sought to be at the forefront of experimenting with new education techniques and research, and boasted the most forward thinking and futuristic students in the world.

One of such students was just leaving her dorm, she was dressed in her best pressed uniform and wearing a headband with little fluffy poofs dangling from each of her temples. They were considered all the rage in the Zaofu lately, based on the stylings of the legendary Patriot Avatar, Kyoshi. 

The student held onto some books and eagerly paced toward the largest lecture hall on campus, where she was certain other students would have gathered by now. While she walked ahead, a familiar looking stocky boy standing off to the side waved her down.

“Hey Xian!” the stocky boy in a university uniform called out to her, “can I grab you for a sec?”

Xian gave a short nasal sigh and walked up to the boy in a huff, “what is it, Yuanzi? I have an important lecture to get to.”

“Ah, an important lecture being given by a very special guest dictator and warmonger, right?” Yuanzi sarcastically replied.

“Baatar III is a nationally respected prodigy, and he’s an alumnus of this school, I think he deserves more respect than that. Plus, I seriously doubt he’s to blame for the Southern Insurgency.” 

Yuanzi walked besides Xian, still talking to her as she walked toward the lecture hall.

“‘Southern Insurgency’? They’re just some people protecting their homes! And you know the only reason why Kuvira has stayed fighting there for so long is because she wants to harvest all the spirit energy in those vines. Why else would she keep sending kids to their deaths knee deep in swamp muck?”

“If they didn’t want a war, then the waterbenders should’ve just moved and let them harvest their vines. The reeducation facilities in Gaoling State alone would’ve made those swamp squatting yokels into productive members of society.”

“Right, just like the other ‘reeducated’ fire and waterbenders who haven’t been heard from since. I told you, my cousin’s neighbor was a firebender who got sent to one of those camps and he never came back ho-”

“I don’t have time for this. If you want to talk war politics or made up prisons can it wait until after my lecture? The seats are going to fill up soon.”

As they were walking, Xian made it to the door leading to the central courtyard of the University. Yuanzi stopped at the bottom of the stairs, not willing to go outside and talk about these things. When Xian noticed this, she decided to stop as well and hear out the rest of his arguments. 

“So, I take it you won’t accept my offer of joining our cause?” Yuanzi asked Xian with a gentler, more persuasive tone.

Xian looked back at him and sighed more audibly than before, “that’s going to be a no, Yuanzi. I’m sorry, but I think you should be grateful for the standard of living we’ve enjoyed since Kuvira took control. I hope you change your mind about pulling this stunt, people could get hurt.”

“You know, not everyone got to enjoy this higher standard of living that you and Kuvira brag about. The people off fighting her war sure aren’t.”

“You can disagree with how a war hundreds of miles away from you is fought all you want, but those soldiers and those rebels made their choice to fight. Kuvira hasn’t conscripted anyone who doesn’t want to fight.” 

“To the people fighting down south and the swampbenders defending their home, the war isn’t all that far away. You know, if some of you could just open your eyes and realize that the world doesn’t end at the border maybe there wouldn’t be a war.”

“I’ll think about it,” Xian said halfheartedly, now looking more concerned to her old friend, “just promise me that you’ll be careful.”

Noticing how genuine she looked and sounded in this instance, Yuanzi smiled back and said, “okay, I promise things won’t get out of hand.”

“Thank you,” Xian responded, “I gotta go, take care of yourself, Yuanzi.”

“You too, Xian,” said Yuanzi as Xian walked away out of sight to the lecture hall.

* * *

With how long the line was finding a seat at all was a lucky break, even if it was in the back rows. There must have been 800 students packed into the hall. She wondered if Yuanzi holding her up like he did was just some sort of plot to make her miss the lecture and join whatever protest he had planned out of spite and boredom. Regardless, she was thankful to have gotten in, and the moment everyone had been waiting for was about to begin. 

Off to the side of the large lecture hall, a door opened to see the guest of honor, Baatar III, step out to a polite applause. He smiled and waved to the audience and walked to the podium as they continued clapping and cheering him on. When he reached the podium, he raised his hand and the crowd grew silent, they responded by raising their right fists and chanted “long live the Great Uniter!” to which Baatar chanted back as an answer to them.

“Hello, students of Zaofu University, I am Baatar III, the son of the Great Uniter Kuvira,” Baatar warmly introduced himself to the large crowd, “but I’m sure you all know that already and that I am a proud alumnus of this very university, despite not being much older than most of you all.” 

The audience responded with a small chuckle.

Baatar smiled back but then put on a more serious face as his lecture began, “now then, let’s get started.” 

Behind him was a large map of the Earth Empire and the Fire Nation, but with the Earth Empire side of the map blank, leaving only the outline of the nation on the map. In front of him were three stacks of metal plates in the shapes of the different states of the Earth Empire like jigsaw puzzle pieces. Each stack had the same shape of states but were in three different colors, emerald green, dark red, and gray. 

“Who here can answer me a simple question,” Baatar addressed the hall, looking absolute, “who won the Hundred Year War?”

About half the hall looked confused, the answer was obvious, right? Avatar Aang defeated Fire Lord Ozai and Fire Lord Zuko officially ended all hostilities, meaning the Fire Nation gave up and so the Earth Kingdom won. A dozen or so students raised their hands to answer this question.

“Yes, you in the middle,” Baatar pointed to a freshman boy who sat in the center row of the lecture hall.

“The Earth Kingdom won the war, didn’t it?” the student answered almost halfheartedly.

Baatar raised an eyebrow, “hmm? And why would you say that the Earth Kingdom won?”

The student darted his eyes around the hall, now keenly aware that most of the eyes were on him. “Um, because Fire Lord Zuko announced at his coronation that the war would end and he withdrew his soldiers from the continent.” 

“Ah,” Baatar answered, almost like he expected that exact response, “I can see why anyone would come up with that response, but let’s take a deeper look into the actual cause and objective of the war.”

Baatar motioned for the student to take a seat and he turned around to face the blank map of the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation. Using his metalbending, he levitated all of the green plates and covered the map in a complete, solid green. 

“No war or event in history happens without context, and long ago the context for the Hundred Year War began,” said Baatar. “The old Earth Kingdom was a vast land that held many raw materials and endless arable land. Under a unified central rule, the size and resources of such a land would’ve made the Earthen nation the most powerful force on the planet.” 

Baatar flicked his wrist and a metal pointer levitated to the northeast region, the large plot of land that makes up Ba Zhu Se on any map of the world. 

“Historically and geographically, Ba Sing Se holds an important central position to much of the continent, but not enough to enforce rule and order over the entire country. This of course has largely been solved by advances in technology which has allowed communication and transportation to make conversing with the far away states a non-issue. Back two hundred years ago, however, this lack of technology made maintaining a strong central authority in the Earth Kingdom nearly impossible. The geographical barriers of the mountains to the west, the Si Wong Desert to the south, and the East and West Lakes to the southwest made it too difficult to have the Earth King march his soldiers to enforce his rule, or defend his whole nation. This weakness made it so that foreign influences who eagerly wanted to take a bite out of our prosperous resources could more easily do so, which of course, ended up being the Fire Nation.”

Raising his arm, five of the smaller state plates that were along the northwest coast of the continent came off and Baatar replaced them with five of the dark red plates, as if the previously pure green map was now stained by blood. Baatar turned around and continued speaking. 

“Thirty years before the Hundred Year War officially began, the Fire Nation officially established several colonies in regions close to them on the northeastern shoreline. These areas had been home to Fire Nation farmers, settlers, and Navy bases for even decades longer before this, but Fire Lord Sozin began to take a simple open border policy much further. He brought in his army to key locations along the coast and conquered them in the name of the Fire Nation. Many of these regions bent the knee without fighting, knowing that they couldn’t withstand the might of the firebenders. The central government and bureaucrats simply ignored them since their colonies were established a distance away from the economic centers of Ba Sing Se, Taku, and Omashu.”

As Baatar said each of these names he gestured his pointer to the areas where each of those cities are, or were in the case of Taku. 

“It was only a matter of time before their continued expansions would get the attention of the central Earth Kingdom government and after the unprompted genocide of the Air Nomads, the Earth King finally declared war on the Fire Nation. The Fire Nation responded swiftly and brutally by ordering the trade city of Taku to bend the knee. Taku was always at risk of invasion due to its strategic location of being the closest major port to the Fire Nation. Ironically the city was initially founded to take advantage of the trade with the Fire Nation. The Fire Navy blockaded the city’s port and it’s army surrounded it on the mainland, threatening them to starve them into submission. When they still refused to bend the knee, Fire Lord Sozin thought of a different, much quicker and more violent ending to Taku: he ordered the Fire Navy to bombard the city and sent his ground troops into the city with an order to take no prisoners. Within days, almost the city’s entire population had been killed in a horrific military maneuver Fire Lord Sozin hoped would scare the rest of the Earth Kingdom into submission sooner rather than later.” 

Baatar gave details of the Slaughter of Taku with a steely yet angry tone, as if he still wants the Fire Nation to pay for these atrocities even nearly two centuries later. As he concluded his section on Taku and the surrounding states, he placed three more red plates in the central western area of the Earth Kingdom. He then spoke of the Northern campaign that used the mountains to cut off the eastern side of the continent from the west, where much of the fighting was still raging. Next was the Battle of Han Tui, which was a move of strategic brilliance from Sozin where he burned the state’s drought ridden crops to a crisp, but within a generation the colonists had rehabilitated the cinder infused soil into even more arable farmland. When Baatar spoke of Sozin, he had his usual steely resentment of one of history’s most hated monsters, but Xian noticed that he couldn’t help but describe his actions and strategies in a respectful, almost impressed kind of way. With each talk of the territorial gains of the Fire Nation, he added more and more red plates until almost everything north of the Si Wong Desert and west of the Western Lake was covered in red plates. 80 years had passed in the context of his historical lesson.

“While the Fire Nation was technologically more advanced than the old Earth Kingdom was at the time, it still took them decades to make the territorial gains that they made onto the continent with their outdated siege techniques. Due to the abundance of food, metal and coal that they needed to feed their citizens, soldiers, and war machine in the northwestern regions, the south remained untouched and the crown jewel of the nation, Ba Sing Se, remained just out of grasp. By the time Avatar Aang returned, the Fire Nation had increased its industrial and technological prowess to steamroll through the south in a matter of months and almost breached the outer wall of Ba Sing Se. The walled city would later surrender itself to Princess Azula due to the corruption and cowardice of the state’s bureaucracy.”

As he said all of this, Baatar placed more and more red plates onto the map until lastly, the plate representing Ba Sing Se was replaced with a red one, engulfing the entire continent. The Fire Nation had conquered it once again in his little demonstration. 

“Now, Fire Lord Ozai was an especially evil despot in a line of tyrants, who planned on using the power of Sozin’s Comet to burn down a majority of the Earth Kingdom so that he could kill all of its inhabitants. Over the course of many generations, more colonizers would have more children to inhabit and regrow the now ‘purified’ land, making it a vast living space for the people of the Fire Nation. He said it was the ultimate destiny of the people of fire, to rid the land of impure soil and people and replace it with their own inhabitants for the rest of time. Fortunately, Ozai never saw his plan succeed, since Avatar Aang defeated and depowered him. Fire Lord Zuko ascended to the throne and declared that the war was over and with the help of Aang he would usher in a new era of love and peace.”

Baatar turned around and with a quick clench of his fists, almost all of the red plates had been removed and levitated for a second, as if to show off just how much land had been conquered by the ruthless Fire Nation. With one hand Baatar stacked all of the plates and placed them back onto the table and with the other he seamlessly placed the green plates onto the map. The Earth Kingdom had been restored. Except for a cluster of red states that clung onto the northwest of the continent.

“In a perfect world, with the war over all of the land that the Fire Nation wrongfully took would be brought back to us, would it not? Unfortunately, we live in an imperfect world where Fire Lord Zuko refused to give up the colonies that existed before and even during the war. Instead of seeing this as an obvious breaking of the promise Zuko made to Aang, he didn’t want to _inconvenience_ the colonials that had set up shop there already. They instead offered a _compromise_ so these colonies would no longer be ruled by the crown and became an independent fifth nation, where people from all four nations could gather and live together in harmony. In theory.”

The remaining red plates had been removed by Baatar and replaced them not with the Earth national green plates like from before the colonization, but instead with the small stack of gray plates that he had not touched the entire lecture. 

“This fifth nation was, of course, the United Republic of Nations, which started out as a noble idea that may have benefited the other nations. The Fire Nation continued to enjoy the resources offered to the homeland through trade. The Water Tribes had a population boom that led to them inhabiting many parts of the country in promise of economic opportunity, and the innovations from the United Republic allowed them to rapidly industrialize and catch up with the rest of the world. And Avatar Aang was able to achieve his lifelong dream of recreating the Air Nomads through his students, the Air Acolytes. But what good did the creation of this country do for the people of the Earth? The northwestern land is some of the most arable soil in our entire continent, the metal and coal deposits could’ve fueled our entire Empire and brought us untold riches and prosperity, and its strategic location is right at the gate of the Fire Nation, where trade could have brought more culture and prosperity to us and the rest of the world. Instead, it went to an independent nation that benefits all the other nations except the one it originally belonged to. Ever since the loss of our land, the Earth Kingdom had suffered economic instability, corruption, and a gross mismanagement of resources and population. That of course all changed when the Great Uniter Kuvira stepped in and turned us into the global superpower we had always been destined to become.”

A small cheer had responded to Baatar’s nationalistic furvor, he grinned and pointed once again to the gray plates that sat on the land that belonged to them. 

“So, to answer the original question, who won the Hundred Year War? My answer is that despite what any modern Fire Lord or United Republic President has said, it was the Fire Nation that won the war. They had achieved Sozin’s original casus beli by carving out a chunk of the main continent. Despite having our capital and _most_ of our lands returned to us, is that we were left off weaker than we were before, with less land and fewer resources at our disposal.”

Baatar looked to the hall and saw the faces of the next generation of Earth Empire nationals that could take his lesson and use it to fuel their irredentism and demand the next generation to take back what belonged to them, once and for all. He turned around and lowered the large map so that he could touch the gray plates, running his hand along the strip of land before lightly slamming his fist to the plate where Republic City now stands.

“We, the sons and daughters of Earth,” Baatar almost mournfully said while still leaning against the map, “have accomplished so much and done so much to the world with our innovations. Could you all just imagine what more could be done with the resources that the pretender state has to offer, and the access to the Fire Nation straits would allow us to bargain with on the world stage?”

He turned around and stepped forward past his podium so that he was now only a few feet away from the front row of the hall.

“The Nation of Earth has not been whole for two hundred years. I hope that in my lifetime and in all of yours as well, our Earth Empire will become whole once more.” 

“Now then, we have some time to answer a few questions,” Baatar announced in a much more cheery tone, having slipped behind the podium before seemingly anyone noticed. “Anyone?”

A few dozen hands shot up, after a moment of hesitation, Xian also raised her hand, something bothering her about the lecture that she just figured out the words to. Baatar answered a few of the questions, mostly innocuous ones such as “how many soldiers was Sozin outnumbered by in the Battle of Han Tui?” or “would the Imperial Navy be able to repel any future attacks of the magnitude the Fire Nation originally did?” Xian’s arm was starting to get tired before getting a jolt with what she heard next

“You there, in the middle with the headband!” Baatar’s now familiar voice called out.

Xian was startled when she realized that Baatar was now pointing right at her, a few heads turned and now she realized she was the center of attention in the hall. Brushing off any feelings of awkwardness or fear of speaking to someone as recognizable as him and a whole crowd, she made a quick gulp and stood up, putting her hand down.

“Thank you,” Xian said, “well, you said that you hope for one day where the entire Earth Union is restored to the land that it once had, how exactly would you say that could be accomplished?”

Parts of the hall looked almost insulted by her question, “by destroying the false state, of course!” would have been their obvious answer. Baatar didn’t seem to be offended at all and smiled.

“Very good question,” he said, “simply put, there’s no easy answer to that. The invention of the spirit bomb has made it so that conventional warfare between two major nations would lead to mutually assured destruction of all life on the continent, if not the planet. With that in mind, international politics are a lot more complicated than they sound, so if it were easy we could just walk up to the United Republic and demand back our lost land, without getting blown up. Which is what our glorious Great Uniter almost managed to accomplish, had it not been for one person. The same person who saved her life and set the stage for this cold war between our two nations. One person who could restore order to all of the nations.” Baatar looked ahead and had an almost wild look in his eye as he finally got the chance to say what he had been wanting to for the entire lecture. “I of course, am talking about the Ava-”

Before he could finish, a small squad of Earth Union soldiers burst through the door and surrounded Baatar.

“Wh-what is going on?” Baatar loudly demanded while getting grabbed by the arms.

“There’s a riot forming outside, sir,” one of the soldiers answered, “we need to escort you to safety.”

The lecture hall quickly descended into panicked murmurs, fearful of a riot so close to them. Xian’s face was also filled with fear and unease, but not of the riot itself, rather who could’ve been the source of it. 

_Yuanzi_ , she thought, _please don’t be behind this_.


	2. Book 1 Chapter 2: The Avatar is a Daughter of Earth

Xian watched as Baatar III’s guards surrounded and practically dragged him out as the lecture hall fell into panic. However, Xian sat quietly, deep in thought as to whether her friend Yuanzi could be behind this. He was a radical, but never acted out in violence or vandalism, at most posting anti-war posters and discreetly handing out leaflets. Most of his talk of uprooting the system was just that, talk. He was intelligent, active, and knew plenty of kids across campus who shared his beliefs. He certainly had the resources and skill to pull this off, but did he have the character to pull it off?

A harsh sounding woman’s voice interrupted Xian’s train of thought, “all right, everyone, get into rows of two and we will escort you back to the housing buildings, no exceptions, let’s move it!”

The students hushed their murmuring and row by row, walked out of their seats and down the stairs to form two orderly lines. At the bottom of the steps was the podium where Baatar stood, the guest speaker having long since been escorted out. He didn’t even have time to gather all of his demonstration props. Xian was among the second half of the students in the hall to be escorted out, sandwiched between two other rows. Before long, she was walking in pace with them out of the lecture hall and through the interior hallways. Xian figured they must be taking this route since the central courtyard, which connects all of the other buildings on the outside, must‘ve been where the riot is taking place. 

Looking out of the windows to the other hallways, Xian could see that all groups were being escorted without even making a glance toward the central courtyard. Any time she tried to get a closer look, she was told to move along by the soldier escorting her. Not that she could see anything, earthbenders had erected barriers outside to obscure any view of the supposed riot. 

Eventually, Xian’s group split up at the entrance to the freshman dormitory building and each of them were allowed to go at their own pace for a change. The soldiers didn’t walk them back to their rooms, remaining posts at each floor of the dormitories.

 _I need to see if Yuanzi is okay_ , Xian thought, _if I can check his dorm room, I’ll know for sure if he’s behind this riot or not. I can’t wait around and have him disappear on me._

Intentionally passing her dorm room on the second floor of the wing, Xian continued walking up to the fourth floor, where Yuanzi’s room was. She passed by two more soldiers stationed at each of the hallways, getting no looks from them behind their cold masks but getting a few confused glances from the students with whom she was slightly familiar with. Most of them hadn’t seen her on this floor aside from the times she studied with her classmates, they could’ve sworn she was on the second floor, not the third or fourth. At least one of the soldiers noticed the confused look on a student’s face as Xian walked past them, and stepped in to investigate.

“Is this your dorm?” the soldier asked Xian, right behind her.

Xian jumped slightly at the sound of the question, startled that a soldier must’ve caught on to her. She wanted to just knock and see if Yuanzi was in his room already, if he wasn’t she’d just head down to her own dormitory. She took a silent gulp and mustered up all the courage she had to lie.

“Of course it is,” Xian answered, turning her head so that she could see the soldier. She was dressed in a streamlined version of the regular Earth Empire military uniform, with a sleek dark green top with metal cuffs around her upper arms, and a goggled mask without a helmet. “I was just reaching for my key,” said Xian, she fumbled around in her pocket and pulled out the key to her own dormitory, knowing there was no way the soldier would know it wasn’t the key to this door. 

The harder part would be actually opening the door. All locks in Zaofu were made out of platinum, a design choice made to prevent burglars from using metal bending to pick them. However, Yuanzi had once taught Xian a trick to get past these metal-bending proof locks. While the tumblers in the lock were all made of platinum, the springs in them had trace amounts of iron to make them more malleable and, well, springy. If you insert any key of similar make into the hole then with concentration you could bend the springs holding down the tumblers and allow the key to slide in like it was made for the lock. The only problem is the soldier leering over her wasn’t going to give her that concentration.. 

_Well, too late to back out now,_ Xian thought to herself as she inserted her key. She focused on the lock springs, feeling out for the iron and keeping her cool despite the soldier expecting her to open the door right away. Most burglars would crack and mess up the second they felt a lawman suspect them. Yet Xian persisted and didn’t even quiver once in nervousness, the seconds of her picking the lock lasting hours in her own head. Right as she heard the soldier take a breath to no doubt ask her what’s taking so long, Xian heard a very relieving click and turned her key.

“There,” said Xian, “sorry, my key’s kind of worn out and you know what those old Suyin-era locks were like, cheap and didn’t last long.”

As Xian stepped into the room and tried to close the door, her heart fell into her stomach when the door refused to shut and she looked down to see the thick boot of the soldier keeping the door open ajar. The door swung open so that the soldier could look down on her and get a glimpse into Yuanzi’s room. Xian still stood her ground and looked her straight in the eye behind her ominous mask.

“Even just to disparage her shoddy workmanship and ethics,” the soldier spat, “I would advise not speaking of Suyin Beifong anywhere around here. Even mentioning such a traitor’s name could get you looked down upon.”

“Understood, ma’am,” Xian answered, still appearing calm despite her stomach turning in anxiety, “I’ll try to be more mindful of speaking about such controversial figures.”

“Good,” the soldier bluntly said, turning around and stepping out the door, “as you were, citizen. And ask the dormitory manager to fix that lock of your’s.”

“Will do, ma’am,” Xian answered, “long live the Great Uniter.”

“Long live the Great Uniter,” the soldier said as she closed the door behind her.

As soon as the door was closed, Xian collapsed onto the floor, landing on her knees, and clutched her chest as she struggled to catch her breath. Her legs felt weak and her hands were shaking from both the nerve-wracking incident and the lockpicking. She wiped some cold sweat from her brow and sat in the middle of the floor to center herself, as her self-fulfilment trainer told her to. Spending about a minute calming herself and clearing her mind to get back at hand and not kill herself with worry, Xian took a deep breath and returned to her surroundings. Unfortunately, she realized that if she was able to center herself uninterrupted in Yuanzi’s dormitory, then that must mean he wasn’t here. If he wasn’t back in his dormitory by now, then he was sure to be at the riot. 

That was the closest she ever got to defying the law and harboring treacherous activity. But now, she realized, what she planned on doing next will make it look like peanuts.

Something inside Xian was telling her to go out and help Yuanzi, maybe even convince him to turn himself over peacefully and end the riot. His room was often dark, and was situated at the end of the hall’s wing, and as an added bonus, the window had a nearby tree branch covering it up. Most other students would feel ripped off for having a tucked away room covered in darkness at the end of the hall, but for people like Yuanzi, it was perfect. Passing through a few piles of Yuanzi’s self published manifestos, Xian opened the window and pushed aside some branches. Scanning the area, Xian made sure the coast was clear and hopped out the window, making a small indent into the ground with earthbending as she landed to cushion her fall. After bending the patch of earth back into its level position, she snuck ahead to the direction of the central courtyard. 

* * *

“This is ridiculous!” Baatar III snapped.

“I am sorry sir, but it’s out of my hands,” Governor Xueliang pleaded to the young man. “The Great Uniter specifically instructed that in the instance of any emergency, you are to be escorted back to Ba Zhu Se immediately.”

Baatar abruptly stopped to turn on his heel and stare down the sheepish governor. Xueliang looked back at him and gulped, uncertain how the Great Uniter’s son would deal with being shipped away yet again.

“I come from two lineages of the most powerful earthbenders in history,” Baatar snapped back, “you and my mother both know that I can handle myself in a scrap.”

Despite being slightly taller than the teenager, Xueliang felt like Baatar towered over him and could easily stomp him to dust. He began to choose his words carefully , knowing that whatever Baatar could do to punish or discredit him, Kuvira would do tenfold for not “disciplining” her son.

“S-sir,” Xueliang stammered, “the rioters are claiming to be against the war, but we think they planned to have it coincide with your arrival.”

Baatar began to walk past Xueliang down the corridor, “why don’t I try to... negotiate with them? I can manage them if they’re as violent as you make them out to be, and I’ve seen what these students were like.”

Xueliang took another gulp and said, “you can’t be serious, sir. This is a dangerous, ravenous mob who wants to dismantle everything that makes the Earth Empire great, especially someone like you!”

“But they are still people of the Earth,” Baatar retorted, “are they not?”

“Well, y-yes I suppose they a-” 

“And are we not the greatest nation on this planet, with the most intelligent people upon it?”

“I suppose…”

“Then if a son of Earth were to talk to them, not just any but one of the most revered and praised of them, do you not think something could be worked out? The son of the Great Uniter talking to a crowd of passionate and intelligent young minds of the most prestigious school in our nation? Could you imagine the knowledge that could be passed to and from?”

“I-I suppose you have a point sir…”

“Then in that case, would you be so kind as to allow these soldiers to escort me to the rioters so I may assist in de-escalating the situation?.”

“Yes, I suppose you could,” Xueliang had begun walking alongside Baatar. “To be honest, they haven’t had much experience lately since Zaofu has been peaceful and cooperative with the central government. This riot is the most action we’ve seen since the city was annexed into the Empire.”

“That’s good to hear,” Baatar answered with a calm smile, “but we should still suppress this riot before it disrupts Zaofu’s peace anymore.”

“Oh of course, sir,” said Xueliang, “that is what they are there for after all.”

“Let’s put their skills at de-escalation to the test then,” said Baatar.

 _Well, that was easier than I thought_ , thought Baatar as he hurried his pace, _mother must be confident in how Zaofu is being handled if she can enable this weak willed imbecile to become governor. That, or she intentionally picked someone this malleable so she could have a more direct oversight and say regarding the city she grew up in._

Baatar looked over his shoulder as he walked back to the central courtyard, he noticed two soldiers make a sudden break for it towards the airport. During the chaos of the evacuation and escort, he noticed two other panicky citizens that just so happened to follow him and Xueliang. The same passengers on the train that couldn’t get their eyes off him, come to think of it. If there were this many undercover citizens in Zaofu and the governor was this much of an easily manipulated tool, then Kuvira’s grasp on the city must’ve been strong.

 _Those spies will no doubt make immediate word to mother that her son wished to defy her orders and attempt to convene with the protestors to her war_ , Baatar thought, making some quick mental notes. _Even the Great Uniter couldn’t enforce her will instantaneously across half a continent, so I’ll have a good hour before her more loyal soldiers will attempt to detain me. Then mother would give me a good chewing out over the phone. That’ll be fun._

As he made these notes, Baatar and Xueliang reached the door to the courtyard. Xueliang opened the door for Baatar, but as he stepped into the bright early afternoon sun, the governor stayed behind at the doorway. 

“I hope you will understand me not accompanying you to these… negotiations, good sir,” said Xueliang, “I am an important figure here in Zaofu.”

“Of course, I understand,” Baatar answered, masking his annoyance of Xueliang’s cowardice, “what would the great city of Zaofu be without their prestigious governor?”

Not sure if he was being sarcastic, Xueliang simply bowed and made his exit with one of the soldiers and left the remaining three with Baatar. He looked out toward the center of the courtyard, seeing a large number of soldiers and hearing a loud ring of voices.

 _No doubt the rioters_ , thought Baatar, _alright, I have just little under an hour to try and reach them and dissolve this would-be uprising._

Baatar looked back at the three soldiers that continued to accompany him and motioned for them to follow him ahead. The bright sunlight felt like a spotlight for all of the Empire to cast upon him, for what he could do here might be enough to force his own stubborn as metal mother to finally bend to another’s will.

 _Now mother_ , _if you really are spying on me I hope you get a good look at how I successfully showed these rabble rousers the light and beauty of our nation. All without your needlessly brutal fear-mongering tactics._

* * *

Xian had managed to sneak her way past all soldiers now patrolling the school grounds, she could tell that many of them weren’t from the city garrison or the police force. They must’ve been added very recently to provide extra coverage for Baatar III’s visit, which explained why they didn’t know the layout of the school grounds like she did. She was able to abuse every blind spot, every nook and cranny, and every gap that she could hide in. Eventually, she managed to sneak her way to the central courtyard of Zaofu University.

The courtyard was spacious and grassy, designed by Baatar Sr to be a tranquil area for students all across the campus to congregate as they either rested, studied, or walked to their next class. Each building of the facility was designed with a perfect balance of closeness for ease of walking and openness, which was intended to encourage the students to think as unrestrained as possible. The only thing that changed it’s pristine layout in the last eighteen years was the platinum statue of Kuvira holding a book to her chest and an outstretched arm to the rest of the school grounds that now stood in the very center of the courtyard. This statue became a rather obvious choice for the rioters to gather around.

It was hard for Xian to see the number of rioters that were in the center of the courtyard, there was a larger perimeter of soldiers encircling them. In fact, the scene that she could see from her hiding spot behind some bushes could hardly be called a riot. There was no damage to any of the buildings, shrubbery, benches, or other structures aside from some glimpses of vandalism on Kuvira’s statue. She could see characters reading “TYRANT” and “FREE THE SWAMP” scrawled onto the platinum statue with paint. She could more clearly hear the chants they made, “END THE SWAMP WAR! END THE SWAMP WAR!”

The soldiers armed with batons and restraining cuffs had erected a metal wall to barricade themselves from the protesters. Behind them were rows of soldiers preparing to launch tear gas canisters propelled by metal shells and others stood in more conventional earthbending stances ready to strike at any protesters that got past the first line of defense. Close to the central building’s entrance was what looked like a small command post for the soldiers. Xian was about to figure out a way to get to the protesters until she noticed the central building’s doors open up to reveal a young bespeckled man with an Earth Empire uniform adorned with stiff metal armor and shoulder pads atop it. There was no mistake as to who this was. 

_Baatar III?_ Xian thought to herself, bewildered to see him in such a place after his lecture, _shouldn’t he be either locked up in some safe room or on his way back to Ba Zhu Se? Why is he here?_ Xian squinted her eyes to see if she could make out what he was doing from such a far distance but could only see him speaking to a uniformed woman.

* * *

“Out of the question,” a uniformed woman with short cropped hair said to Baatar, “I can’t have the son of the Great Uniter play negotiator with these violent traitors.”

“Captain Cho,” said Baatar with a determined fervor in his eye, “these students are some of the most highly educated and forward thinking people in the entire Empire, I think they of all people can listen to reason.”

Captain Cho crossed her arms, “these traitors and rioters are condemning Kuvira’s attempts to civilize the swamplands. I’d hardly call that reasonable, and seeing how the Great Uniter isn’t here they’re more likely to take out their anger on you.”

“Well if anything, it looks like they’ve taken out their anger on my mother’s statue. Have you seriously not tried to negotiate with them?”

“I guess you can say that. We told them to disperse, they said no, we surrounded them as a result. If they don’t lay down all their weapons and kneel by the time I address them again, we’ll send in the troops to force them to stand down.”

Baatar looked concerned by Cho’s methods, such blunt ways would hardly get a riled up crowd to stand down easily. All this will do is cause the protestors to feel trapped and desperate, the inevitable burst of desperate action, allowing the soldiers to beat them into submission. This is not what he wants one of the most enlightened cities in the world to succumb to.

“Think about it, Captain, if this riot were to escalate to violence, how would it look like on your legacy as the police captain? It would be disastrous if Kuvira or Xueliang heard that you refused to heed my advice on how to handle a crowd of intelligentsia and it resulted in needless deaths.”

Cho narrowed her eyes, seeing through his loosely veiled blackmail and threats of discrediting her. She weighed her options, knowing that if the protests escalated to violence with Baatar to witness it, Kuvira would trust whatever statements he’d say even if he was supposed to be on a plane to Ba Zhu Se. If she said no to him now and continued as planned, she could have her position jeopardized. 

“Fine, if you really want to try to get up close to those anarchists and try to politely ask them to stop being terrorists, be my guest.”

Baatar simply bowed in respect and walked ahead of her, motioning for about a half dozen of the soldiers to accompany him but not carry any weapons. When he reached the grassy courtyard, he raised his leg and slammed his foot onto the ground, the soil providing enough earth to allow him to get a read of the area. In an instant, Baatar had a precise number of all of the people. There were about two hundred protestors in all surrounding the statue of Kuvira with double that number in soldiers surrounding them. The heart rates of all the protestors were pounding, they were angry and pumped up, but Baatar didn’t sense any malicious intent behind them. They would fight if need be, but didn’t want to throw the first blow. The soldiers, on the other hand, had a steady but rapid heart rate, they were just itching for any excuse to push forward and take care of them the quick, easy, and painful way. 

But most curious of all, was a lone figure he felt hidden far off in the bushes to the west building. He crossed his arms behind his back and lightly stomped his foot on the ground again, in the distance he heard an “eep!” as he saw a girl still in her university uniform pop out of the bushes, having been propelled by a slab of soil. A handful of soldiers closer to the student quickly surrounded and ordered the girl to put her hands behind her head and surrender. Baatar calmly walked up to them and motioned for them to step aside for him to speak to her.

“Not the best time to be playing hooky, hm?” Baatar quipped to her with a soft smirk, “what is your name, student?”

“Xian,” the girl answered after a second of hesitation.

“Nice to meet you Xian,” Baatar politely responded and extended his hand for her to shake it.

“Um, the pleasure is all mine, sir,” Xian replied with a slight smile, “I actually saw you not too long ago at your lecture, I asked a question.”

Baatar’s face lit up, “ah, so _that’s_ where I remember you from, I thought you looked familiar.”

Xian’s steely facade began to dissolve after being charmed by the young man, she let out a small giggle and responded with a bashful, “yeah, thanks.”

Baatar’s smile faded slightly and asked, “well then, just what are you doing here? Trying to join these protestors? Wanting a closer look at the action?”

Xian’s eyes darted back to Baatar’s and remembered her precarious situation here. To Baatar and the soldiers, the most logical reason why she’d be out here was to join the protests, so the best way to dissuade them would be to tell them the truth.

“I am here because....” said Xian, hesitant for a second as to whether it was right to expose Yuanzi like this, “I believe one of my friends might be the leader of this protest.” 

“I- I see, and who might this friend of yours be?”

Xian paused.

“He has tried to talk me into joining ‘something big’ for today. He’s been planning it for months and he has made it abundantly clear to everyone on campus that he’s no fan of the Great Uniter.”

Baatar paused to look into the determined yet concerned eyes of this unexpected observer to the riot. Impressed at her tenacity and ability to make it this far, there was something else about her that grabbed his attention. She stared danger and potential arrest right in the face and still was determined to find a way to peacefully end this debacle, if her friend was truly behind it all. He figured that their interests just might align.

“Xian, how would you like to help me with negotiating a peaceful end to this protest?”

Xian’s eyes widened with shock and answered, “m-me? But why?”

“You know these students better than I, including their potential leader. I graduated here two years ago, I’m afraid I don’t know many of the newer faces around here. And something about you just gives me an air of persuasion and reason, the question you asked at my lecture showed me that you are right to be here at this University. I think you would do an excellent job of showing your fellow forward thinkers the light.”

Xian paused and finally let the surge of emotions swell within her. Here she thought that she could be facing jail time, but now she was standing face to face with Baatar III himself, complimenting her and asking her to help with a situation. She tried her best to sound more humble and less giddy.

“Thank you very much sir for the compliments, if you believe I can help then I’ll try.”

“I appreciate it, let’s get to work.” 

He motioned to the soldiers to not restrain her and stay at her side. They all approached the center of the protest cautiously, each step the chants becoming louder and more intense. Baatar had a determined expression while Xian did the best to mimic his resolve but couldn’t help but feel nervous of what could happen the closer she approached the chaos. Eventually, they reached the barricade of soldiers, and in front of them, the mob. Beads of cold sweat trickled down Xian’s neck, the moment now closer than ever as a soldier handed a megaphone to Baatar. He aimed it towards the general direction of the crowd.

“This is Baatar III, son of the Great Uniter Kuvira, Empress of the Earth Empire,” he proclaimed through the megaphone, “I do not want any violence, a fellow student of yours and I have come to hear out your grievances and I hope we can come to an understanding!”

A few angry jeers responded to Baatar’s plea, such as “go back to your mommy dictator!” or “if you don’t want violence don’t support a war!” However, many of them were quieted when a megaphone from the protestors’ side called out, “hold it!” Suddenly, the entire crowd became eerily quiet, one could almost hear the soldiers behind them restlessly shifting about. Above the remaining murmuring, the megaphoned voice called out in response, “what do you mean a student is here? Did you drag them out of your little political rally to use as a meat shield?!”

“No,” rang back Baatar, “I found her patrolling the grounds wishing to speak to you, she is here on her own free volition.”

Baatar lowered the megaphone and gestured it to Xian, asking, “do you wish to speak to them? It could really help our case right now.”

Xian looked at the megaphone and took a deep breath, gathering her confidence. She took it from Baatar’s hand, flipped it on, and calmly started to speak.

“My name is Xian, I’m a first year here at Zaofu University. I enrolled here because I wished to be among the most respected individuals in this great nation of ours. I can see that you are all angry about the war, and while we can disagree with how it’s being fought, we are all children of the Earth. We all have the gift of fortitude and strength buried deep within us, and if you are all my colleagues here in this brilliant university, then I am certain we can come to an agreement and end this peacefully. We are unbreakable, like the very earth and metal that courses through the ground and gives us strength!”

The crowd grew quieter, there were several hushed mutterings between the various protestors, Xian swore she could hear one of them say, “Xian? What is she-” in an exacerbated manner. 

After a few agonizing seconds of silence, the megaphoned voice perked up and said, “alright, we’ll talk to you, but no promises on us leaving here, and no Tyrant III leering over us, got it?”

Baatar asked for the megaphone back from Xian and replied, “I can get the soldiers to back away further from you all, I can’t ask them to leave completely.”

After a moment of hesitation, the megaphoned voice answered, “fine.”

Baatar motioned to the soldiers and they all lowered the metal barricades, leaving nothing in between the protestors and Xian and Baatar. The protestors all wore school uniforms as well as simple cloth masks and face paint. They were a diverse age group, looking like they had freshmen and seniors alike. Close to the center of them all was a stocky boy who immediately recognized Xian.

“Xian?” the boy said with eyes wide with shock, “is that really you? H-how could you try to sell us out like this?”

“Please, I want to help prevent any more violence and chaos, just let us talk things out.”

Yuanzi looked deep into Xian’s emerald green eyes and saw that she was being genuine, despite their disagreements, she was still his friend and wanted this to end peacefully. He took off his mask and stepped forward, trusting his old friend. Baatar had a relieved smile and stepped aside, but still ready to step in and help. All was going well, until Baatar was barely able to notice two of the soldiers take a fighting stance in the corner of his eye. Before he could even react, the two soldiers stepped forward and pushed Xian to her knees. Xian had only a fraction of a second to look on in horror as the soldiers launched two sharp metal plates straight into the now unmasked Yuanzi’s throat and chest. Yuanzi’s shocked expression quickly faded as he coughed out blood and fell to the ground, clutching his throat.

“The leader has been neutralized!” one of the soldiers called out, “repeat, the leader has been neutralized!”

The other soldier turned back and yelled, “everyone, move in!” 

“YUANZI!!!” Xian screamed while still on her knees, scrambling to get to her friend. She reached him and tried to grab him by the shoulders and drag him to safety, but she was again knocked to the ground by the advancing soldiers. 

Within seconds the soldiers passed the two of them and from the corners of Xian’s eyes she could see the soldiers attack the students with their earth, metal, and batons. The students tried their best to fight back with earth, some metal, and even their bare hands, but were clearly outmatched and surrounded. Xian saw every student in front of her get violently subdued and unmasked, some of them were classmates she knew. All of them, the esteemed children of the Earth, as Baatar called them, were being beaten and rounded up like common criminals and vagrants. She began to crawl back to her fallen friend. Yuanzi wasn’t moving anymore, his gasps and gurgles fell silent and even the flow of blood had stopped, staining the green grass below him. She nudged him and called out his name to tell him they had to escape, but he didn’t answer. Xian turned over Yuanzi’s heavy body and saw that his eyes were glazed over and unblinking. She placed her fingers under his jaw but felt no pulse. Overcome with sudden grief and horror, Xian simply clutched his body and sobbed into Yuanzi’s lifeless shoulders. 

“I AM ORDERING YOU ALL TO STOP!!” Baatar screamed at the soldiers. He looked around and analyzed the situation, there was no way he could order them all to stand down right now and they were clearly under a secret demand by Captain Cho. The students would have to surrender for now, so he could get out of there and inform his mother of what really happened before Cho could rewrite the scenario. More importantly, he needed to find the girl, Xian, and get her out of this situation safely. He scoured the area for a minute and then saw her not far away, clutching the protest leader’s body and her uniform stained with blood, hopefully not her own. He rushed up to her and placed his hand on her shoulder.

“Xian!” he yelled above the cacophonous violence, “Xian we need to get out of he-”

Before he could even finish, Xian turned around with a vicious scowl on her face and tears staining her cheeks. However, one thing about her face rocked Baatar to his very core, and in that second he knew that his world would never be the same again.

Xian’s eyes were glowing a brilliant white light.

All he could do was open his mouth and eyes wide in shock before Xian struck her palm forward and blasted Baatar backwards with a mighty gust of air. He was pushed almost halfway back to the courtyard command post, his uniform now jostled and his hair unkempt, he gathered his senses and looked up with an almost reverent awe. All the protestors froze in their steps as a ring of air surrounded Xian, pushing back all other soldiers around her. She stood and gazed forward towards the platinum statue of Kuvira. 

“Kuvira….” Xian growled, her voice sounding like a distorted mixture of her own and another woman’s voice.

“KUUUU-VIR-AAAAAAAAA!!!!” Xian roared as fire spewed out of her mouth and onto the statue, lurching backwards and shooting more fire out of her fists. 

Xian airbended herself over twenty feet into the air and then came crashing down with her fists slamming into the ground. A shockwave of earth came rolling outwards and sent every other soldier and protestor flying backwards. The shockwave hit the foundation of Kuvira’s statue, toppling it along with it’s pedestal. The ring of air surrounding Xian dissipated and the glow in her eyes went out. She simply collapsed in exhaustion.

Baatar stood up and walked to Xian, his face still twisted with disbelief at what he just saw. Not knowing what else to do, he simply touched Xian’s shoulder and jostled her to get up. Xian groggily turned her head as if she just woke up from a deep sleep and quietly groaned. She sat up and saw Baatar’s concerned face looking into her eyes. He sighed in relief and looked at her proudly before a dozen soldiers had surrounded the two of them. They all stood in fighting poses yet looked scared of her.

“Sir, you need to step away from…. her,” one of the soldiers said to Baatar.

“What are you saying, do you have any idea what this means?!” Baatar exclaimed back.

“What does what mean? What happened?” Xian confusedly asked. She looked upwards and noticed the uprooted courtyard and the toppled statue of Kuvira. “D-did I do this?” Xian asked, almost sounding scared of herself.

“Yes you did,” Baatar answered with an air of pride, “Xian, you’re the Avatar.”

Xian looked at Baatar with shock and looked at her own hands.

“People!” Baatar stood up and proclaimed to the entire courtyard, “at long last, the world has found the Avatar! And she is a daughter of the Earth!” Baatar thrust his fist into the air as he announced this.

Still unsure of what happened, Xian was picked up by the soldiers and was held by the arms. Baatar turned back and smiled at her.

“Xian,” Baatar excitedly told her, “you need to come with me to Ba Zhu Se.”

* * *

Far away deep within an underground prison built to house one special prisoner, sat a woman in her thirties in a spacious, empty metal cell. She was dressed in dull brown baggy pants that looked to be part of a jumpsuit and bandages wrapped around her chest. Her dark brown hair was nappy and long enough to reach the floor while she sat, but most distinct of all was the sky blue arrow tattoo that started from her forehead to down her back. Similar tattoos ran along her arms and legs and formed arrows on the back of her hands and bridges of her feet. Chains were fastened around her waist, wrists, and ankles, but it was if she didn’t mind them. She sat in the center of the empty room, her eyes closed and deep in meditation, centering herself, completely unmoving and calm. 

Suddenly this seemingly lifeless woman let out a strained gasp, her eyes shooting open. She turned her head and instinctively faced toward the southwest side of the cell and stared ahead, as if she could see something beyond the metal walls. Despite not having seen sunlight or the outside of the cell in literal years, she knew exactly which way to look. She could feel a massive amount of energy being released thousands of miles away, a feeling she hadn’t felt since she descended from the spirit world during Harmonic Convergence. It was the same wave of energy that made the Avatar Spirit, Ravaa herself, be so recognizable.

The woman stood up and walked toward the southwest side of the cell, being stopped by the chains before she could reach the wall. She looked down and giggled, as if she completely forgot she was chained up in the first place. Instead she sat down and extended her hand to the wall, imagining what, or who, was the source of that surge of energy.

She whispered, “I missed you so much…. Korra.”


	3. Book 1 Chapter 3: The Eternal Metal City

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the lateness of this chapter, I was caught up in election news and drama and it had to go through several rewrites and edits until I was pleased with it. It's a very exposition heavy chapter that goes over the new Ba Sing Se under Kuvira's reign, one that I'm personally proud of because it goes into lots of material that I love to explore in these types of stories. Special thanks to my editor and girlfriend Julie for helping me with this chapter <3

The images flashed before Xian’s eyes again. 

First there was a microsecond of pitch black, then suddenly she saw Republic City, buildings on fire and collapsed, the whole city was a warzone. The vision was frantic and janky, as if she was seeing through the eyes of another person. She was atop a building, in front of her was the unmistakable colossal mecha suit Kuvira piloted to conquer Republic City. She couldn’t feel or control whatever body she was looking through, she could only see their dark skinned arms bend a massive torrent of air toward the Colossus, knocking it over. 

Before she could process what happened, Xian’s vision flashed to another image. She was in the fight of her life against Kuvira herself, appearing to be much younger than she was now. They were cramped in an area full of windows, control panels, and monitors, it must’ve been the bridge of the Colossus. Kuvira was launching slabs of metal and semi-liquid meteorite at her and she fought back with bursts of fire, metal, and airbending. It was fast, dirty, and blurry, an up close and personal fight with none of the grace you’d see in the movers.

Once again her vision flashed and this time the two of them were surrounded by strange vines glowing a blinding purple. Kuvira was on her knees next to her, looking injured and exhausted. A powerful beam of purple light distinct from the glow of the vines around them shot from above and was just feet away from reaching them. She created a large bubble of air to shield the two of them, but bits of the purple light poked through. Not long after, the energy broke through the barrier and Xian could only watch as she heard a scream of terror and a pair of dark skinned hands raise to instinctively cover herself as the blinding, brilliant energy overtook her and enveloped her body. 

For just a moment, Xian could feel everything that body must’ve felt. A burning, overwhelming sensation that seared into every inch of her own body, but it went even deeper than that. It was the most intense pain she had ever felt in her life, it was as if her soul itself was being burned. The horrible scream she heard turned from an unfamiliar voice into her own, and the scream was now coming from her own very real lungs and mouth.

Xian let out a yelp as her eyes opened wide in terror and jolted forward. Her body was drenched in cold sweat and she panted, rubbing her arms trying to relieve herself of the pain she felt in that dream. Or was it a vision? Before she could think any more about it, a cabin door swung open and she saw a familiar bespeckled face peer inwards.

“What happened?” Baatar III asked, “I heard a scream, are you alright?”

Xian took a second to look around and ground herself in reality. However, she quickly realized that grounding herself literally would be difficult, given that they were thousands of feet in the air in a private government jet plane. As the fogginess of sleep faded she remembered, they were on route to Ba Zhu Se to see the Great Uniter Kuvira herself and she was in the plane’s bedroom area, doored off from the rest of the comfortable and well furnished cabin. Right outside the door to the cabin were two other guards ready to stand up and give any “assistance” to herself or Baatar.

“I’m fine,” Xian answered, regaining her composure, “I just took a nap and had a bad dream is all.”

She turned away from Baatar and scowled, bringing her knees to her chest. Baatar frowned and stepped into the bedroom.

“Can we talk?” he asked in a gentle tone, “I’m certain this must have been an… eventful day for you.”

Xian glared at him and said, “I just watched my friend get brutally killed by your soldiers and was in the middle of a spirit damned riot, and that’s ignoring that I just found out I’m the…. you know. So ‘eventful’ is a bit of an understatement.”

Baatar stepped forward and sat at the foot of the bed, his face heavy with shame and disappointment. 

“I assure you from the bottom of my heart that I did not order the leader to be taken out so brutally. I wanted to persuade him to stand down peacefully, but then those brutes stepped in and ... no, I should have seen this coming and I am so, so sorry for your loss and any role I had with this incident. Unintentionally or otherwise.”

While still angry at him, Xian could sense that his words were genuine.

“If you didn’t ask for him to be taken out, then who did?”

“It must have been Captain Cho, she’s the police leader and is running Zaofu more than Governor Xueliang ever did. She’s a hardcore ‘law and order’ enthusiast, and thinks that the people are a mindless mob who need to be beaten into submission. I, however, believe that the people of earth are an enlightened nation who deserves to be heard and reasoned with. Even if I disagree with some individuals, I think a dialogue should always be attempted. Tell me, would you call your friend a smart person?”

“Oh of course he was, he was especially enthusiastic about history and the different cultures throughout the old Earth Kingdom.”

“Interesting, what about them?”

“Well, he had spent a lot of time studying the culture of the pre-war Earth Kingdom and how it changed as a direct cause of the Hundred Year War. He began to slowly realize that there was no true ‘Earth Kingdom culture,’ even in a broad sense. Instead, there was a large variety of very distinct groups of people with their own identities sharing one huge continent. Even the closest thing to a genetic or spiritual similarity between all the cultures, earthbending, was proportionally the rarest trait of all the four nations. Only about one in every five people on the continent had earthbending abilities, compared to the one in every three firebenders or the one in every two waterbenders, not to mention the entire population of the Air Nomads being airbenders. And there was the presence of other explicit bending cultures on the continent, such as airbenders in the northern mountains and waterbenders in the southern swamps. He ended up seeing Kuvira’s nationalism as a mere fabrication for propaganda purposes and the Swamp War as her stamping out one of the different elements in the nation.” 

Baatar’s eyes widened in fascination with Xian’s words, and thought for a moment before answering her. 

“I see where we could disagree, but I’ll be honest and say that he had a point. Before the war, the Earth Kingdom was disorganized and weak, ripe for the picking of other nations, such as the Fire Nation. My mother saw how weak it still was when she restored order to each of the states and vowed to never let her nation fall to ruin again, whether from foreign influence or itself. She believed that if some of those smaller cultures had to be sacrificed in order to make the nation centralized and strong, then it was a small price to pay. She grew up in Zaofu, where innovation and progress while under the guidance of a maternal figure was just how things worked there, so she did the same to her Empire.”

He paused for a second and swallowed, unsure if he should continue.“The Swamp War may be the most public example of my mother ‘stamping out’ different cultures within the Empire, but it’s far from the first one. There have been numerous smaller uprisings that were suppressed, especially in reaction to the early stages of the Modern Empire Movement. There was more than just industrialization and literacy programs in the plan. She wanted far off, undeveloped states to shun their culture and instead see how much more enlightened they were under the philosophy she learned in the Metal Clan.” 

“Wait, weren’t these programs very beneficial to the undeveloped states? Before they were just backwater agrarian areas that didn’t even have paved roads. The industry and excavation programs turned the entire nation into a modernized superpower.”

“Yes, they certainly did, but such progress never comes without a cost. Any of the old governors or magistrates who didn’t like the quotas Kuvira gave them were discreetly replaced and never heard from again. Many of those leaders were the same ones who signed treaties with Kuvira after the monarchy fell and she reunified the nation one province at a time. As more and more of the conservative leadership got replaced by staunch Kuvirists, the more they influenced the youth to see the glory that was the Great Uniter. One of their favorite pastimes was ceremonial burnings of scrolls and books of old regional philosophers and historians. Within less than a generation, Kuvira had stamped her ideology onto virtually every state in the Empire.”

“H-how could that be? We were taught that Kuvira had united the nation without a single drop of a rival’s blood, that she achieved a national unity more efficiently than any other leader in history."

“Such lessons are often exaggerated, but you do need to remember, this all happened mere months after the armistice was signed at Republic City. We could’ve appeared weak to our own populace had Kuvira’s program for improving their lives not been enacted with a level of efficiency. This was early on, and now thankfully the government doesn’t have to resort to such barbaric ways of enacting it’s programs. The people know better and expect Kuvira to make the best decision for them.”

“....maybe Yuanzi had a point after all, with all this backstabbing and betrayal people who worked under Kuvira did. I can only hope Kuvira herself didn’t tolerate this for long.”

Xian paused and broke eye contact with Baatar. She thought of the people who could’ve been appointed by Kuvira, and which ones of them could’ve done atrocious acts and which ones could receive punishment after being informed about it. 

“What will happen to her? Captain Cho.”

“I will inform my mother of what Cho did and urge her to have her removed. If she doesn’t listen to me, you could have a better chance at persuading her. You are the Avatar, after all.”

Xian winced slightly hearing that last word. No matter how many times she tells herself that, it's still just too shocking for her to see herself as the Avatar. Not two days ago she was just a student at Zaofu University, hoping to earn a degree in economics just like her parents would’ve wanted her to. Now, she was the most important person on the planet. Despite this mountain of responsibility placed upon her, she knew that whatever normal life she wanted was now long past her, and that as was her duty to the Earth Empire, she had to answer directly to the Great Uniter.

“Yes,” Xian reluctantly answered, “I’m sure that now that I’m… the Avatar, I can have a lot of sway with the Great Uniter.”

“I know my mother can be… intimidating, so I can’t imagine how nervous you’d feel meeting her,” said Baatar reassuringly, “I’ll be right by your side the entire time.”

Xian mustered a weak smile and said, “thank you.”

It looked like Baatar was about to lean forward to say something else before there was another knock at the bedroom door. It was one of the guards coming to inform him that they were making their descent to Ba Zhu Se International Airport. They all moved into the main cabin and fastened their seatbelts. 

Within minutes, Xian could see the legendary outer wall of the old Ba Sing Se stretch along the entire horizon, a monolith spanning unbroken for an endless length. It was made of gray stone and not any of the gleaming metal that was symbolic of the Earth Empire, melding into the outer wall itself. A portion of the terminal was on the other side of the outer wall, where the building’s entrance, monorail station, highway exists, and parking structures were located. The various branches of the airport terminals led to countless paved runways in the flat land just outside the outer wall. 

After making a smooth landing, Xian, Baatar, and their guards were discreetly escorted to a silver and dark green limousine. It had the distinct curves and sturdy build of a modern Imperial Automotive made automobile and was adorned with an Earth Empire hood ornament. An attendant waiting for them was quick to open the door for Xian and Baatar, and inside the limo they were met with comfortable seats and two more guards. 

They drove off on the barren runway past the terminals and straight through the tunnel leading onto the Central Highway. The highway system was one of the many infrastructure projects that was used to transform the old Ba Sing Se from a cloistered, walled off city to the central hub of the entire Earth Empire. Every road, and monorail, in the Empire eventually lead back to Ba Zhu Se, the Central Highway in particular went all the way from the capital to Omashu. Before the highway was finished, people had to travel from one side of the nation to the other either on unpaved roads or on the high speed magnetic monorail system developed years ago. While the monorails were extremely efficient, Kuvira saw the automobile as a true symbol of national wealth, prosperity, and freedom as shown by the Satomobile in the United Republic. She made it one of her priorities to allow every family in the Empire to afford and be able to use such a symbol of high living.

Below them were the wide open farmlands that lay between the outer and inner walls, the highway and monorails elevated to not interfere with the city of millions’ vital food production. Criss-crossing the farmlands were roads for farmers to easily drive across the agrarian zone to tend their fields and haul their crops on trucks instead of ostrich-horse drawn carriage.

They drove for almost a half hour before they caught first sight of the inner wall. Along the entire width of the wall they could see several buildings that just barely peaked over the ancient structure, along with a small handful of buildings that dwarfed it entirely. Xian had tried to prepare herself for the sights that awaited her the moment they entered the true Eternal Metal City but as darkness briefly enveloped the car passing through the wall tunnel and they emerged to sight of the late afternoon sunlight bathing the true overwhelming sprawl of the city, it took her breath away. From atop their still elevated highway, Xian was awed by the motley yet organized ocean of buildings, trees, and streets that stretched far across the horizon.

What was once the rancid and overcrowded lower ring had been completely demolished and replaced with a bustling housing sector. These buildings were just short of the wall’s height, but they extended for hundreds of meters past it, giving the illusion that the old wall was thicker than it actually was. They were made of black and silver metal with green highlights and windows, the blocky, brutalist architecture creating a uniform style. Xian excitedly gazed out the car window and saw that these housing blocks hugged the inner wall for what looked like the entire length, enough to house half of the city’s population. Far off in the distance Xian could get a glimpse of the industrial parks that were far from the view of the Central Highway, though never far from the perimeter of housing structures.

Along the Central Highway, various shorter buildings catered to the needs of the city dwellers and workers. There were smaller apartment complexes, rows of compact houses, office buildings, recreational parks, and even small sporting arenas, turning every inch of the former lower ring into a vibrant, prosperous living space. Below the highway, Xian could get a glimpse of the day to day life of the cityfolk. The streets were lined with shops, restaurants, and other leisurely businesses, most of which were built into the lower levels of the shorter buildings. The buildings and houses themselves were reminiscent of the architecture of Zaofu, with gleaming dark gray metal being the primary building material of all the structures, but with some of the familiar themes of traditional Ba Sing Se architecture such as sloped roofs with dark green tiles. 

Xian was also impressed by how much greenery there was alongside the modern cityscape. There were urban parks, rooftop gardens, trees lining every block, and grass along every sidewalk. Unlike Zaofu, which felt like a city springing up from nature, Ba Zhu Se was nature springing up from a city. Baatar turned to Xian and noticed her scanning the treeline.

“The greenery actually helps keep the city cooler,” Baatar chimed in as he rolled down the window for some air. “Rainwater falls off the sleek metal buildings and is soaked into the grass, bushes, and trees below them. If the rainwater just evaporated on barren concrete like in Republic City, then it’d just heat up with the sunlight. Pretty ingenious, right?”

Xian was so engrossed with the sights and scale that she only responded to Baatar’s comment with a nod. Baatar smiled at her enthusiasm.

“Isn’t it incredible what could be accomplished in just under twenty years?” Baatar proudly asked Xian.

Xian answered, “I used to think Zaofu was impressive, but this completely blows it out of the water.”

“That’s what my mother and father dreamed of,” Baatar answered, “they wanted to take the futurist and innovative philosophy of Zaofu and apply it to rebuilding our capital. Baatar Jr. was able to achieve a hundredfold of what his own father did before him.” 

Baatar paused and his mouth tightened at the mention of his father. Moving on from the subject, he pointed to the shorter emerald green buildings up ahead. 

“We’re approaching what was once the middle ring. As you know, when the Red Lotus took out the Last Earth Queen, they destroyed much of the walls that divided the three socioeconomic rings of the city. Instead of keeping these archaic divisions up, my mother decided to tear down all the walls within the city so that anyone could travel within it. While the lower ring was almost completely burned down and the upper ring was pillaged, the middle ring was left relatively unscathed, as the peasant rioters went straight to the riches of the upper ring. So you will find some of the oldest buildings and structures in the city here, including Ba Zhu Se University.”

Listening to Baatar’s little private lecture, Xian looked out the elevated highway onto the old fashioned green and white buildings of the former middle ring. There was still a distinct difference between this area and the former lower ring, the buildings of the lower ring were tall, imposing, and modern while the middle ring had a comfortable familiarity to them. 

The familiarity of the buildings eventually faded, and were replaced by a return of ultramodernism in the former upper ring. Instead of blocky and monolithic housing units or traditionalist preserved buildings, the new upper ring combined the best of both worlds. It was a cityscape unlike any other in the world, with skyscrapers rivaling those of Zaofu or even Republic City. They were sleek and metallic like those in Zaofu, but with an angular shape to them and sturdiness, many not going above forty stories. They had traditional elements such as hard hill and hip roofs, made of gleaming metal instead of tile. Not a single opulent structure of the old upper ring remained, and gone were the gaudy and aristocratic golds and reds contrasting poorly with the natural greens of the palaces of old. What replaced them were the sleek and prideful silvers and greens of the people of earth and metal. They stood not for a boastful and out of touch oligarchy, but for the children of the nation that built it with their hands, tools, and bending under the guidance of their matriarch, who’s gaze never left from the tower that dominated over all the city. 

All the way back in the former middle ring, Xian could see the true centerpiece of Ba Zhu Se, the Imperial Administration Tower. Standing at an unimaginable 500 meters tall, it truly scraped the sky and dominated everything within the walled metal city. It was a structure made entirely of glass and metal, starting at a wide base that got slightly narrower in the middle before becoming wider again toward the top. The narrower middle section had a large emblem of the Earth Empire sculpted out of metal. Every five to ten floors there was a ledge reminiscent of classical pagoda structures that jutted outwards pointing either downwards on the bottom half of the tower or the upwards for the upper half. The very top had a radio and television antenna strong enough to broadcast to half the Empire, and a spacious observation deck where the Great Uniter’s office and residence was located. 

As they reached ever closer to their destination in sight, the Central Highway finally reached its end and they entered the Imperial Plaza. The giant red gateway and wall that surrounded the Palace grounds had long since been destroyed, allowing commoners to enter the formerly forbidden lands. The grounds had been turned into a marvelous, massive forum that was reminiscent of the Fire Nation Royal Plaza that led to Zukokyo, but spanning an even longer four kilometers in length. Each side of the plaza was flanked by long, spacious museums that were constructed with traditional Earth Kingdom stylings but stuck to the green, gray, and black color scheme that permeated the Earth Empire. 

None of this, however, could compare to the structures at the end of the plaza. In front of the restored Royal Palace sat the gargantuan Metal Rose. Standing over 300 meters high and 400 meters wide on a metal plated podium, it was a gigantic, ornate stadium stylized to look like a massive flower, not unlike the platinum domes of Zaofu. It was large enough to seat over 200,000 civilian spectators, and the floor space could hold an entire military division indoors. It was designed to be a place where inhabitants of the entire Empire could congregate for political rallies, speeches, and conventions, Kuvira wanted it to be a meeting space for all people across the Empire, a monument to the willpower of her nation. The Metal Rose served as the centerpiece of the entire city, dwarfing almost all structures around it, except of course the Imperial Administration Tower. 

All three legendary structures stood in symmetry with one another, the Metal Rose standing before the Royal Palace and the Administration Tower behind it, sandwiching the former seat of government between the two colossal modern structures. The Metal Rose allowed the children of earth to sit in a glorious structure made to show their power and unity to the world. But just several hundred meters behind them sat the true seat of power, the Administration Tower, from where the state and the Great Uniter could watch all as it towered not only above the city, but across the entire Empire. And nestled between the two structures was the old Royal Palace, lovingly recreated to its former glory, but without all the empty land that was walled off from the people. Now, the people could walk in and out of the Palace, as a tourist attraction and a reminder of the old Earth Kingdom. 

The people, the past, and the state. The people loomed over the past while the state towered over both. All as it should be. 

Baatar and Xian’s limousine drove past all these monuments to a private gate on the side of the Administration Tower. The whole drive from the outer wall airport to the center of the city must’ve taken over an hour, but to Xian it was not nearly enough time for her to fully grasp the magnificence of the Eternal Metal City. As they finally stepped out of the car, Xian noticed a strange structure several kilometers back, and she swore she saw a small jet land down in that area in the distance.

“Baatar,” Xian asked him, grabbing his attention as he stepped out of the limousine, “is there an airport within the city over there?”

Baatar squinted and answered, “ah yes, that’s a private airstrip used by the government and certain high ranking officials. The large airport outside the city is where all other civilians travel to and from.”

“So, we could’ve just landed there and saved ourselves an hour long drive?”

“And not give you a scenic drive through our incredible and modernized capital city? Why would I deprive you of something like that?”

“...Fair enough.”

“But enough of that, we need to get you to the top of the tower and have a little chat with my mother.”

Xian tensed up, soon she would meet the most important person in the world, in her own inner sanctum. She looked above to the massive structure towering above her, noticing just how oppressive it looked up close. She swallowed these feelings of nervousness with a gulp, and walked forward with Baatar into the beast of a building. 

Baatar realized that he may have been too quick to boss her around and meet the most important person in the world, but in hindsight he couldn’t help it. Finding the Avatar was his lifelong dream and here she was, standing right in front of his home. 

“We don’t have to go in immediately,” Baatar reassuringly told her, “to me, she’s my mother, but to you this is the most important person in the world, so we can take this step by step if you’re nervous.”

“I’m ready,” Xian responded defiantly, stepping forward alongside Baatar.

Baatar lightly grinned back at Xian.

“Very well, let’s not keep her waiting.”

They both stepped into the side entrance to the tower and before long were facing the central elevator. Access to the top floor required two keys, one from Baatar and another from one of the guards with them. They were now only a few precious minutes away from the most important first meeting in the young student’s life.

* * *

The ride upwards felt like it lasted an eternity, the air was thick with anticipation in the small ornate metal cube and when the elevator finally came to a stop, Xian was half expecting it to open right at Kuvira’s office and have her ominously turn her chair to see her like in a spy mover. It instead opened to a lobby where one of Kuvira’s many assistants, a middle aged man with an undercut, attended a long metal desk. The lobby had several doorways and hallways that led to other government offices, but behind the central desk was a huge metal double door with an Earth Empire emblem split down the middle. Baatar walked up to the desk and the assistant immediately perked up. 

“Hello, Yeng Li,” said Baatar, “I’m here to see mother and introduce her to… you know who.” He gestured behind him to Xian.

“Oh, of course,” Yeng Li answered excitedly, he peered over Baatar’s shoulder and glanced at Xian, he could barely contain his excitement.

She was quick to notice how excited he was to see not Baatar, but her. This was the first time someone recognized her as the Avatar outside of the courtyard incident. It made her feel…. conflicted. On one hand, she felt unnerved with the idea of people being elated at her for something she was born with, and didn’t even know she had for her life up until that moment. On the other, there was this feeling of pride that was just starting to bubble up, this realization that like how Baatar mentioned on the plane, being the Avatar meant that she could now have opportunities that she would never have had before. She now had an unexpected duty, admiration, and opportunity all in one. Uncertain of how to process this all at the moment, she simply smiled and nodded back to the secretary.

Yeng Li picked up a phone from his desk and said, “my esteemed Great Uniter, your son and the very important guest have arrived. Yes, I’ll let them in right away.” 

He pushed a button on the intercom and an unlocking sound came from the double door behind his desk. He gestured toward the door, signalling them to go ahead. 

Baatar and Xian walked ahead, the other guards staying behind in the lobby. Time seemed to stand still to Xian as Baatar opened the door and she looked into the sacred office of her nation’s savior. It was a spacious area surrounded on all sides by wide windows that gave a complete view of the city below. The edge of the Metal Rose was just out of view while the middle ring was a motley smattering of green specks in between the taller structures in front of and behind it. The massive housing structures all the way at the edge of the inner wall looking like dominoes in the distance. Along the center of the office was a huge scale model of the architectural plans for the rebuilt city below, sitting on top of a large table with comfortable looking couches on either side of it.

Sitting at a sleek metal desk right in front of the windows was a woman in her 50s with black hair and gray streaks, a face hardened with the burden of holding an entire superpower together. She had reading glasses loosely hanging from her nose and was dressed in flowing, comfortable robes with a strong looking piece of metal armor adorning her shoulders. She was deep in concentration at the paperwork and maps in front of her, almost as if she didn’t get the message of guests arriving and didn’t look up from her reading glasses. Ever the one to initiate, Baatar stepped forward and coughed into his hand to make his presence known. The woman glanced upwards and smiled as she took off her glasses and stood up, walking to meet her son in the center of the room. 

“Hello, mother,” Baatar greeted himself with welcoming but concerned eyes. “Xian, this is my mother, the Empress of the Union of Imperial Earth States, the Great Uniter, among other titles, Kuvira. And this, mother, is-”

“The Avatar, I presume,” Kuvira answered for him, looking right past Baatar and into the eyes of the girl standing before her. 

Baatar shrunk back slightly and eyed his mother as she approached Xian, who had eyes wide with fear and exultation alike. Kuvira smiled warmly and extended her hand out to shake Xian’s.

“It is my highest honor and privilege to meet the most important person in the world, Avatar Xian,” said Kuvira politely.

The golden sunset of Ba Zhu Se cascading into the office, Xian smiled and extended her hand to shake back Kuvira’s in a firm handshake.

“The honor is all mine,” said Xian with a calm yet ecstatic smile, “all hail the Great Uniter.”


End file.
